"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday announced plans for tens of thousands of asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico for their next immigration court hearings to be allowed into the United States while their cases proceed.
The first of an estimated 25,000 asylum-seekers in Mexico with active cases will be allowed in the United States on Feb. 19, authorities said. They plan to start slowly with two border crossings each processing up to 300 people a day and a third crossing taking fewer. Administration officials declined to name them out of fear they may encourage a rush of people to those locations.
See photos from Mexico as the US immigration debate continues in a gallery at the end of this story
The move is a major step toward dismantling one of former President Donald Trump’s most consequential policies to deter asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S. About 70,000 asylum-seekers were enrolled in “Remain in Mexico,” officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols,” since it was introduced in January 2019.
On Biden’s first day in office, the Homeland Security Department suspended the policy for new arrivals. Since then, some asylum-seekers picked up at the border have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court.
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Read the complete article and view the photo gallery of the “human side” of “Remain in Mexico” (a/k/a “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico”) at the link.
Earlier this week, Press Secretary Jen Psaki appeared to say it would take weeks if not months for the Administration to develop a plan to dismantle “Remain in Mexico.”
These are all individuals who have been previously screened and found to have a “credible fear” of persecution by a USCIS Asylum Officer. Many have been waiting for hearings for more than one year and have had their hearings postponed by EOIR time after time.
Additionally, many ofthe Immigration Judges assigned to the “Remain in Mexico” Program have notoriously high asylum denial rates, some approaching 100% denials.
I sure hope that the Pro Bono Bar is working with USCIS and EOIR to insure that all of these individuals are represented. As we know, that’s the key not only to insuring court appearances, but also to increasing the chances for success on the asylum application.
Vigorous representation of asylum seekers will also be the key to dismantling the aggressive anti-asylum, anti-due-process “jurisprudence” that the defeated regime attempted to implement at a “weaponized” EOIR. Where necessary, these cases must be litigated to the Courts of Appeals and used as examples of the pressing need for reform of the broken, unfair, and dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Courts.
For now, it remains unclear what will happen to newly arriving asylum applicants. Will they receive the “credible fear” screening to which they are legally entitled? (It appears that some families applying for asylum have been screened and released to await hearings in the U.S.) Or, will they be arbitrarily returned to harm’s way with no process at all, pursuant to Stephen Miller’s bogus “CDC border closing order” that has yet to be repealed?
Progress! But still lots of confusion at the border as a result of the defeated regime’s extralegal shenanigans!
Still, dismantling the mess Miller left behind shouldn’t be rocket science. Just common sense and using the existing legal tools to solve human problems, rather than intentionally aggravating them. But, it will take different folks (experts) in charge to make it happen!
Supremes Sign Death Warrants For Vulnerable Refugees, Trash Refugee Act of 1980Dumping Asylum Seekers in Honduras Artist: Monte Wolverton Reproduced under licenseA girl peers out from an encampment at the U.S.-Mexico border where she and several hundred people waited to present themselves to U.S. immigration to seek asylum. / Photo by David Maung
by Adolfo Flores and Hamed Aleaziz in BuzzFeed News:
After days of confusion about changes along the southern border, the Biden administration on Wednesday said immigrants should not try to enter the US because most will still be turned away under a Trump-era policy that has recently come under legal scrutiny.
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Confusion about who was being allowed into the US in recent days forced the administration to issue a stronger warning. Last week, reports of some families being allowed into the US after being apprehended at the border resulted in speculation that immigrants would no longer be immediately expelled and instead be allowed to fight their immigration cases from within the United States. In the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, immigration advocates have reported seeing about 100 people a day released by Customs and Border Protection. In other parts of Texas, shelters have also seen increasing numbers of immigrant families, but it is not clear why.
Attorneys and advocates who work with immigrants along the border have been bombarded with phone calls and texts about whether they should try their luck at getting into the US. Erika Pinheiro, policy and litigation director with the immigrant advocacy group Al Otro Lado, said it was “incredibly disappointing” that the Biden administration has continued to expel immigrants under the CDC order.
“We know now that the CDC order prohibiting asylum processing at the border did not arise from public health concerns but rather was part of Stephen Miller’s efforts to dismantle the US asylum system and was implemented despite opposition from CDC leadership,” Pinheiro said, referring to one of Trump’s former senior advisers. “US expulsions of asylum-seekers, including infants, constitute plain violations of domestic and international laws meant to protect vulnerable refugees. CBP absolutely has the resources to process asylum-seekers in a safe and humane way.”
The turnbacks, known as expulsions, are legally different from deportations, which would mean an immigrant had actually undergone the immigration process and found to not be legally allowed to stay in the US. Critics say the government is using the public health orders as an excuse to turn back immigrants at the border.
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“While we recognize that the Biden administration has been saddled with a lot of bad policy and structural problems, it cannot continue the Trump administration practice of turning away people in danger based on illegal policies, such as the notorious and pretextual Title 42 policy,” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the ACLU.
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Read the full article at the link.
“Go suffer and die somewhere else, out of our sight,” might not be the best message for an Administration trying to re-establish its human rights and humanitarian leadership and credentials.Ever hear of the “St. Louis Incident?” It’s always easy to find a way to “just say no” to refugees — and the consequences are seldom pretty.
Those who won’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. Refugee and forced migration situations happen in the “here and now;” they can’t be “back burnered” — no matter how much policy officials might wish otherwise. In a forced migration situation, “doing nothing” is an action that produces consequences for both the forced migrant and those who ignore their plight.
There are many daily potentially deadly and dehumanizing consequences of continuing to ignore asylum laws and Constitutional due process for asylum seekers at our Southern Border.
One predictable one: Instead of turning themselves in at the border or to the Border Patrol shortly after entry, as had been happening until Miller & co. intervened, those seeking refuge apparently have gotten the message that our legal system is and remains a sham for them. Consequently, increasingly they are simply evading the Border Patrol and disappearing into the interior with no screening whatsoever — health, legal, or background. Also, by intentionally driving people out of the legal system, the Administration is totally blowing a chance to harness and build upon one of the most powerful known facts — represented individuals with asylum hearings scheduled show up for their hearings!
According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the estimated number of so-called “get always” — actually human beings seeking refuge — hit 1,000 on Sunday.
Sure, there are many aspects of this problem. But, it has been “out there” for nearly a year!
Sure seems to me that with the right experts in charge, including folks like Lee Gelernt and Erika Pinhero, this issue could and should have been addressed more constructively and with much more urgency by the Biden Administration by now. Why not harness the expertise and proven problem solving abilities of folks like Lee, Erika, and many other members of the New Due Process Army rather than fighting with and resisting them?
Instead, it looks like time and resources will continue to be wasted on forcing policy changes through litigation. Meanwhile, vulnerable asylum seekers and their families will continue to suffer as illustrated by this recent article from HuffPost about the human consequences for those caught up in the Government’s scofflaw border policies.
NOTE TO PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: Sorry, Jen, but those fleeing for their lives don’t generally respond well to “don’t come right now, we don’t want you” messages, particularly from folks who have never been in that situation themselves. It’s actually pretty insulting to think that folks fleeing to the U.S. 1) aren’t smart enough to know the dangers involved; 2) don’t realize that the the U.S. Government doesn’t want them; and/or 3) have choices about their travel as Jen and her buddies might have when planning a summer vacation.
As one of my esteemed colleagues once told me: “Desperate people do desperate things.” What about people who keep repeating the same policy mistakes over and over while expecting different results and failing to grasp either the absolute urgency or the human side of forced migration issues? It’s sort of like going to the emergency room with a burst appendix and being told, “Why don’t you just sit in the waiting room until we doctors figure out what to do? Get back to you later!”
Somewhere out there, Stephen Miller must be gloating about how he totally outsmarted and outflanked the Biden Team!
🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever! Oh, when will they ever learn, when will they learn?
PWS
02-11-21
UPDATE: THE CONTINUING REAL TRAUMA CAUSED BY THE “REMAIN IN MEXICO PROGRAM” (A/K/A “LET ‘EM DIE IN MEXICO”) WHILE THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION “STUDIES” THEIR NEXT MOVE:
Emily Green writes in Vice, as reposted in ImmigrationProf Blog:
